


Christmas in Bigg City

by Exdraghunt



Series: TUGS [3]
Category: TUGS (TV)
Genre: Gen, human!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-12
Updated: 2013-12-12
Packaged: 2018-01-04 10:19:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1079821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exdraghunt/pseuds/Exdraghunt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Winter has come to Bigg City and some weird things are happening down at the docks. Part 3 of TUGS series</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas in Bigg City

It was Christmas time in Bigg City. The harbor had frozen over, as it did every year, and shipping traffic had slowed way down for the winter. Out past the estuary, the seas were high and rough. It was too dangerous for even a large ocean tug like Hercules to leave port, so Captain Star had relegated him to small tasks around the harbor. Even if liners and tramp steamers weren’t coming into port, there were still vital deliveries that needed to be made. It was hard for the ocean tug, he was too large and drew too much water to fit in many of the smaller inlets of the harbor. More than once, he found himself aground and had to call one of his fellow Star’s to pull him off.

Daylight was getting shorter and shorter, but the tugs still started before the crack of dawn and didn’t finish up until well after dark. It wasn’t unusual, then, when Top Hat woke up one morning in the pitch black. It was darker than usual, since there were usually some lights around the harbor, but the railway tug didn’t worry much until he noticed he was in his human body inside his wheelhouse.

Top Hat automatically tried to shift back to his tug body, then frowned when it didn’t work. Rather confused and concerned, he slid off the narrow bed and stepped out, hitting his head hard on the low doorframe that he always forgot to duck under. With a hiss of pain, Top Hat fell to the floor. It felt like something was trying to split his skull open. Pain was not something the tugs knew, their real bodies had dull senses and their human bodies barely felt at all.

He finally managed to stumble out of the wheelhouse and could hear the sounds of the other Stars struggling to get down to the dock. There was much cursing from Ten Cents, and a loud thud came from Warrior as the big tug fell off his second deck ladder. They all eventually got down to the dock and stared at each other wide-eyed. Their human bodies didn’t really look any different, but the change was clear in the way their breath puffed and fogged in the air. It was the first time any of them had ever needed to breathe.

“Someone needs to tell Captain Star,” OJ finally announced, leaning heavily on his cane. “He’ll be here soon.”

“I’ll go,” Hercules volunteered, headed up for the top of the docks. Ironically, the tug that spent the most time out at sea was the most comfortable in his new human body. The others were still standing around, trying to get used to the sensation of breathing and beating hearts. A gnawing hunger was forming in their guts, but none of them knew what to do about it and simply tried to ignore it.

Captain Star pulled up to the marina in his tired Dodge Brothers sedan and stepped out, intending to head to his office and pick out the assignments for the day, when he saw Hercules round the building coming from the docks.

“Is there a problem, Hercules?” The tugs should be down at the dock warming up their engines for the day.

“Yes, sir. A big problem,” Hercules was dead serious with no sign of his usual cheery demeanor, “We’ve been turned human.”

“What?” Captain Star followed his tug down onto the dock, where the large tugboats were sitting dark and silent. The now human tugs had taken seats in their lumpy chairs, though they all turned and several stood when their Captain arrived. “What’s going on, Stars?”

“I’m not sure, but it don’ feel good,” Sunshine pressed a hand to his gut when his stomach growled loudly. That sound sealed it. Tugboats didn’t need to eat, only humans did.

“I have heard of this happening before,” OJ spoke up, having remained seated. “When I was just a young tug, I used to hear the older ships talk about something like this.”

Everyone stared at him, rather surprised that this was a thing that had happened before.

“I’ve never heard of tha’ before,” Big Mac commented. He was the second oldest harbor tug in the fleet, but the depth of OJ’s memory still tended to surprise him.

“They didn’t like to talk about it much, except in hushed whispers at night.” OJ was thinking hard, trying to remember what had been said in the shadowed inlets of his younger years.

“Did they turn back?” Top Hat pressed him anxiously, “I can’t stay a human like this forever!”

“Yes, they did turn back,” OJ was confident about that. “I think it only lasted a few days.”

A few days? They could probably handle a few days of being human. Captain Star was already going through a mental list of everything that needed to get done. First thing was to get his tugs fed, then he needed to call around and see if he could find a human crew to come down so he could fulfill his contracts for the week. “Wait right here, I’ll be back in a little while.”

Apparently, the human affliction had affected every living ship in Bigg City Harbor, because it wasn’t easy to find a human crew. They were being snapped up by every company in the city, but he did manage to get a couple engineers and crew looking for work. Just enough to run his two smallest tugs. It was fortunate that this had happened in the middle of winter, when the only contracts were fuel runs and barge deliveries.

The next call he made was to his wife, Patricia. She was a trained nurse and would have a better idea of how to deal with brand new humans. Plus, she could bring down food for everyone.

Captain Star walked back down to the docks with his new human crew behind him. The Star tugs stood up, Sunshine and Ten Cents coming over in concern when they saw the unfamiliar people climbing aboard their bodies.

“Oi, what’dya think you’re doing?” Ten Cents yelled, intending to tell off the intruding strangers. Captain Star quickly pulled him and Sunshine aside out of earshot of the crew.

“I need you two to calm down. None of you can work like this, it’s too much of a liability, so I’ve had to call in human crews to get the contracts done. I know you don’t like it, but you’re just going to have to deal, understand?”

The two switchers didn’t like it, but orders were orders. They nodded sullenly and went back to their seats. Satisfied, Captain Star gave the crews their instructions and sent them on their way. As they chugged away from the dock, Patricia arrived with a basket full of sandwiches and fruit juice for the new humans.

Food was a good distraction, and the tugs enthusiastically dug in to their first meal. Taste was a completely new sensation for them and they were finding it quite enjoyable. Warrior got a little too excited and started to choke. Patricia simply leaned over with a bored expression and gave him a good thump to the back.

Hercules was quickly realizing why humans had so many different kinds of food, if all things tasted so good. This was an incredibly strange situation, though. What in the world could cause all ships in Bigg City Harbor to turn human? And was it just affecting Bigg City, or had other harbors been hit too? What about ships out at sea, what would they do? That would be incredibly dangerous, if a tramp steamer suddenly turned human they would be set adrift without an engineer to run the engine. The ocean tug’s eyes suddenly widened and he jumped up out of his chair. Lillie. Lillie was out all alone at the entrance to the harbor, what if she had been affected too?

He informed Captain Star, who quickly dashed back to the office to get on the radio and call the Coast Guard. They were quite busy, but promised to take a crew out to Dender rocks to man the lightship until whatever had happened was over. The tugs were finishing off their breakfast when the Coast Guard launch dropped off a shaken and confused Lillie at their dock.

“What is going on?” The lightship took a seat in an empty chair and accepted the sandwich offered to her.

“Darling, it appears we’ve turned human.” Hercules sat down next to her, “OJ figures it’ll only last a few days, so we’ll just have to sit and wait it out I suppose.”

A few days. They could survive that.

It was then that a different sort of growling from their guts signaled a new need. Patricia sighed and prepared to try and explain the human process of using the bathroom to the group of ships. It went decently well with minimum disgust (with the rather notable exception of Top Hat), though Patricia was a little surprised when the tugs dropped their pants and didn’t quite have the parts she was expecting. It made a bit of sense if you thought about it. All ships were considered female when launched, and stayed that way unless the ship happened to come to life and developed a male personality. A ship’s life could come anywhere from a few months to a few years after their launching. Patricia did hope that it wouldn’t cause any complications, though. She really did not want to try and explain the concept of “that time of the month” to the already rather traumatized ships.

Lunch was served up, then the tugs were let loose on the town. Patricia gave them strict instructions to keep together in groups of at least two or three, to be back before dark, and to be careful. They could be hurt now, and quite easily, but there wasn’t really a reason to try and keep them at the Star marina for however long this lasted.

As the others wandered off, Hercules noticed Lillie standing uncertainly off to the side. “Would you like to accompany me into town, sweetheart? I thought I’d visit Lucy.”

She summoned up a shy smile and took his arm, “Alright.”

The two stayed close as they walked through the city, watching the masses of people bustling around with some awe. It was the middle of the day and only two days before the holiday, which meant there were hundreds of humans crammed onto the sidewalks, all going with a purpose. Hercules shivered in the cold and pulled his coat closer around him, frowning with annoyance when his breath started to fog up his glasses and blur his vision. He wiped at them with his coat sleeve, which helped only for a little bit.

“Are you having a problem?” Lillie asked with some concern as the big ocean tug suddenly sped up, eager to get to Lucy’s and out of the cold.

“My glasses are fogging up. It’s not a big deal, but I would like to get in out of the cold.” Hercules patted her hand. He was beginning to understand why humans were so touchy-feely, their sense of touch was incredibly heightened.

Arriving at Lucy’s apartment building, they headed for the stairs and began to make their way up. It was normally something Hercules accomplished quickly with little effort. This time, he started breathing hard after two flights, and felt a stitch in his side after four. No wonder humans had invented the elevator. They stepped out onto the six floor and took a moment to catch their breath before walking down to Lucy’s room.

“Alright, let’s see if she’s home.” Lillie stood back while Hercules knocked on the door. After a moment, it was opened by a stout young man who glared up at the tug accusingly.

“Who the hell are you?”

“Who am I?” Hercules was surprised by the young man’s audacity. What was he doing in Lucy’s apartment? “I think a better question, old boy, is who are you? I’m here to see Lucy.”

“What do you want with my sister?” He remained blocking the doorway.

Sister? Hercules hadn’t known that Lucy had siblings. “My name is Hercules, I’m a friend of Lucy’s. I’m here to see her.”

Lucy’s brother didn’t move, and the two had a short stand off before smaller hands suddenly shoved him out of the way and Lucy took his place.

“Luke, get out of the way. I can’t have you scaring off all my friends. Oh, Hercules! How are you?”

“Just fine, sweetheart.” He stiffened at her hug, as he always did. “I’ve brought Lillie with me too.”

The lightship, who had been standing awkwardly in the hallway, smiled softly and came into the apartment.

“Oh, Lillie. It’s lovely to see you, dear. Come in, both of you.” Another hug was in store, then the group moved into the apartment and took seats on the couch.

“You didn’t tell me you had a boyfriend, sis.” Luke gave Hercules a look and sat down close to his sister protectively.

“Hercules is not my boyfriend, Luke.” Lucy laughed and rolled her eyes, “We’re just friends. And besides, Hercules isn’t human, he’s a tugboat. And Lillie is a lightship. I told you they have living ships here.”

“I thought you were kidding,” Luke muttered, leaned back in his chair to give the two ships a look over from a distance.

“Actually, that’s why we’ve come to see you, darling. There’s been a small problem. All the ships in the harbor have been turned human.” There really wasn’t a good way of saying it, but that’s how it was.

“What?” Lucy looked to Lillie for confirmation, eyes widening when the lightship nodded in agreement. “But, how? You’re completely human, eating and breathing and everything?”

“And every other messy thing being human entails, apparently.” Lillie commented drolly, starting to relax.

“I have to feed you two every kind of food I can find.” Of course, having fun was the first thing on Lucy’s mind, “Is it permanent?”

“You would think of food first.” Hercules rolled his eyes, “No, we don’t believe it is permanent. OJ thinks it could last only a few days.”

“A few days? I’ll have to hurry, then.” Lucy checked her watch, “Have you had lunch yet?”

“Excuse me, but what the hell is going on?” Luke had been sitting and watching the conversation, but apparently couldn’t take it anymore.

“Normally, the tugs just have human illusions. Which are totally fake, they don’t eat or breath or anything. But I guess now they’re actually human for real, which means I have to get them to try as much food as I can while it lasts.” Lucy was already making plans. Hercules regularly teased her about all the different kinds of “fuel” humans had, it was time for some payback.

Hercules and Lillie gave each other concerned looks. Lucy could be a bit scary, but it couldn’t be that bad, right? Breakfast had tasted pretty good.

With an evil glean in her eye, Lucy found a coat and prepared to go out to get lunch. She could be cruel and take them to a nice spicy Mexican place, but thought that might be a little too mean for their first day as humans. There was also a great family owned Italian place down the street that was a little less likely to trap them in the bathroom afterwards.

 

Going out to dinner might have been a bit expensive, but it was worth it just to see the look on Hercules and Lillie’s faces when they took their first bite of pasta. Lucy had to put her hand to her mouth to keep from laughing as the two dug in enthusiastically. They weren’t very neat about it either, bits of pasta and pesto sauce kept falling off their forks onto the table or into laps. It was understandable, though. It was probably their first time ever using utensils.

“We’ll have to bring the other Stars here, this is amazing,” Hercules, after some instruction from Lucy, dabbed at his mouth with a napkin and tried to clean up his shirt a bit.

Lucy shook her head at the sight of Hercules moving the stain around his nice coat. Clearly, they were going to need to do some clothes shopping. “Do you two have any money? You can’t get along with just one set of clothes.”

“Captain Star did give us some cash. I suppose clothes shopping wouldn’t be a bad idea.” Hercules gave up trying to clean off his shirt and stood. “Thank you for the meal, darling. I’ll have to bring by the others tomorrow afternoon.”

“As long as they pay their own way,” Lucy teased. She footed their bill, because she was just that nice a person, and led the way to the nearby department store.

The day of embarrassing firsts continued as the two ships tried their hand at putting on clothes. The two were rather irked when they discovered that the selection at the department store didn’t include much in the way of nautically themed clothing, but they finally managed to find something deemed suitable. Lucy reminded them both to pick out a few pairs of underwear and socks, as well as a couple shirts, so that they could at least be well attired for however long this strange event lasted.

By that time it was almost five o’clock, and given that it was December, that meant that the sun was already setting. The chill was settling in deeper, stinging at exposed faces as people bustled about preparing for the holiday. Hercules pulled up his collar higher and frowned at the sight of soft snowflakes beginning to fall, “Looks like it’ll be a white Christmas.”

“Oh, great. I’ve never had snow on Christmas,” Lucy raised an eyebrow at the tug’s sullen expression, “I take it you don’t like snow.”

“No ship does,” Lillie explained, “It creates poor visibility, ices up all equipment, the cold seizes up engines and can break up caulking in wooden ships.”

“It’s unpleasant,” Hercules chipped in.

“Sounds like,” Lucy grimaced, “Well, it’ll be alright now. I mean, it’s a bit cold, but the snows are also really beautiful. We’ll get you some gloves and nice thick socks.”

“How do you even work in bad weather?” Luke mostly listened to their conversations with vague confusion, but occasionally chimed in. “How do you see anything?”

“Well, it isn’t so bad. Not a lot of work in the harbor with this weather, since most of the small inlets have iced up and there isn’t a lot of big shipping. The small tugs are mostly working at supply delivery, it’s a matter of moving slow and keeping your lights maintained.” It wasn’t a season where Hercules had much work, he was too large for small deliveries and there weren’t many cross-ocean liners and naval ships that needed tugging. “When the fog rolls in, or the rain gets heavy, we whistle navigate with echoes and keep a listen out for other fog horns.”

“Sounds complicated.”

“Not so bad as Lillie has it, the poor darling,” Hercules nodded to his companion. Though Lillie did not have to try and navigate, whenever the weather got worse the chances of her being rammed and sunk by an errant liner increased.

“Oh, I’m just fine,” Lillie protested. “Just have to keep anchored on my station, after all. It even gives me a chance to start up my engine every once in a while.”

Luke stared at the two with wide eyes, unsure if they were joking or not, then shook his head and sighed.

They arrived at the dock as the streetlights flickered on, replacing the cool grey light of the day with their warm artificial glow. The other Stars were already at the dock, having returned from wherever they had spent the afternoon.

“Thank you for the wonderful meal, darling. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hercules smiled and patted Lucy’s hand.

“Alright, Hercules. Don’t get too crazy tonight,” Lucy winked and laughed, grabbing Luke and dragging him back towards shore, “Bye Lillie, watch these boys for me.”

“Don’t worry dear, I will.” Lillie grinned and gave her a wave.

“Who’s that guy wit’ Lucy, Hercules?” Ten Cents watched the two humans walk away with raised eyebrows, “Someone musclin’ in on yer girl?”

“That is Luke, Lucy’s brother,” Hercules rolled his eyes, well used to the teasing of his fellow tugs, “And she’s not my girl.”

“Riiight,” Ten Cents winked and turned away to see Big Mac and Warrior joining them, “Oi, Big Mac, Warrior, wa’s happened?”

Big Mac was sporting a fresh cut on his cheek and a black eye, while Warrior had a good-size bruise down the left side of his face and was favoring one leg. “One of them human fights. Dinnae realize how easily humans get hurt,” Big Mac shrugged, rubbing at one hand with raw knuckles.

“Great, we let you lose one day in the city and you’ve already gotten into a fight,” OJ shook his head tiredly.

“Well they started it,” Warrior crossed his arms, “We weren’t doing nothing.”

Top Hat scoffed, “I very much doubt that.”

“Well, the real question, lads, is what d’ we do now?” Sunshine threw himself down in a chair and breathed a heavy sigh. Normally, the tugs didn’t finish work until late and had just enough time to shoot the breeze and relax before going to sleep. But now, they had hours until it would be late enough to go to bed.

The others flopped down ungracefully in chairs and watched as lights around the harbor blinked on in the darkening gloom.

A loud whistle signaled the return of the human crew for the evening. Late winter and the current strange situation meant there wasn’t a full days work to be had, so they were returning earlier than usual. Ten Cents and Sunshine went to help them tie up (and make sure the humans hadn’t done anything to their bodies, of course).

The human crew went up to the office to pick up their paychecks for the day, then came back down the docks to the boats to grab their stuff before heading off to the bar to squander their paycheck.

“Say, you boys ever been in a bar?” One of the men asked when he realized the Star tugs were unabashedly watching the human crew, “Cause we’re headed that way.”

The Stars looked at each other and shrugged. They had all been in bars at one time or another for various reasons, but now they could actually partake in the alcohol. It could be worth trying, see what all the hype was about. The drink must really be something special if humans were willing to spend all their money on it.  
The bar they went to was just like any other wharf-side dive. It was noisy, crowded, and not entirely reputable. The air was full of pipe smoke, making the tugs cough when they walked in, and the sound of a ragtime piano could just barely be heard over the shouting of the drunken clientele.

A table in the corner was rustled up, already occupied by friends of the human sailors they were with, and the contest to see who could get the tugs the drunkest began. And really, it didn’t take terribly long considering the brand new humans had absolutely no alcohol tolerance. After the third pitcher of beer, the stories being swapped were getting more and more outrageous. With no concept of their limits, the drink hit the tugs like a sack of bricks, and it was a fair bet that none of them would remember the night tomorrow.

Warrior had gotten into a drinking contest with one of the other patrons and was unconscious under the table, while Ten Cents and Sunshine had disappeared off somewhere unnoticed. Hercules smiled as he swapped stories with a pretty cute sailor, talking about some tow or another that had gone pear-shaped.

The bar eventually closed and everyone wandered out in various states of consciousness, many hanging over the shoulders of fellow sailors as they headed for their ships and hotel rooms. Hercules wasn’t entirely sure what had happened, but he woke up the next morning with a killer headache in an unfamiliar room lacking any of the clothing he had on the previous night.

“What the-“ Hercules groaned and pressed a hand to his forehead, squinting in the dim light of the room. Okay, no more drinking, ever. What pressed the humans to drink something that wiped their memory and made them feel like death the next morning?

Gingerly climbing out of the bed, Hercules felt around and managed to locate his underwear on the nightstand, followed by his pants down at the end of the bed. Walking was unpleasant, a combination of aching legs with nausea. His lower abdomen especially hurt, making him wonder if something else had happened last night during the rather large gap in his memory as he dug out his glasses and shirt.

It was a horribly long walk from the waterfront hotel back to the Star dock, where he found the other Star tugs weren’t doing any better than he was. The human crew, however, had already started up their boats and left. How the humans managed to stay up all night drinking and still get up the next morning they had no idea.

“So, I see you all have learned a lesson,” Captain Star came down the dock with arms folded, looking at his tugs with disappointment. He wasn’t entirely surprised, it was a lesson that could only really be learned the hard way, but he had still hoped his tugs would conduct themselves a little better than that.

A groan was his only response. Shaking his head, the Captain went back to the office to call his wife and get her to bring down some lunch.

The day was spent sitting quietly on the dock nursing their hangovers, and when the human crew returned they all refused another trip to the bar. Once was quite enough. When night fell they all bedded down early in the familiarity of their wheelhouses, already worn out from their human adventures.

As soon as the sun went down in Bigg City the thermometer dropped rapidly and everyone woke up the morning of Christmas Eve with a light snow on the ground and more already falling. It was a struggle for the tugs to get out of their warm beds and struggle into cold clothes that had been laying on the floor all night.

It was cold enough for skin to stick to metal as the Stars slowly climbed down from their wheelhouses and made it onto the dock. A thin layer of ice covered the harbor, the sun unable to penetrate the thick clouds to melt it. Boat traffic would be at a standstill until after the holiday when the ice breakers could get to work.

“How do humans stand this stuff?” Top Hat complained as he rubbed his hands together briskly, pulling his coat closer around himself, “And I thought snow was bad when we were tugs! At this rate, it’ll freeze the monocle right off my face.”

Normally, Top Hat’s whining was cause for amusement, but in this case the other tugs quite agreed with him. There would be no sitting around on the docks in this cold, so they all headed up for the office which at least had heating.

The office had been giving a few basic decorations in acknowledgement of the holiday, with a small tree in the corner and a wreath on the door. Normally Captain Star put a bit more effort into it, but this winter season had been so unusually hectic he hadn’t even had time to hang ornaments on the tree.

Though the tugs didn’t know much about human holidays, normally just counting them as a rare day off, when Lillie located a box of ornaments in a cabinet they set to work. There wasn’t really anything better to do.

When Captain Star arrived an hour later, he was rather surprised to find his tugs gathered around a freshly decorated tree, squabbling over the placement of the last couple ornaments. “Well, I see you all have been keeping yourselves busy in my absence.”

They all whipped around at his voice, having been too engrossed to hear the door open and a bit embarrassed to be caught. Warrior turned a little too fast and overbalanced, stumbling into the tree and knocking it over onto Ten Cents.

“Warrior!” They all scrambled to upright the fallen tree and free Ten Cents.

“Oops,” The big harbor tug laughed sheepishly and stepped out of the way.

Captain Star sighed and rubbed his temples. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, but he couldn’t justify leaving his boys all alone on the docks during Christmas. “Well, if you’re done making a mess of the office, I thought I’d have you all over for the holiday. I don’t want to leave you all unsupervised for three days, and my wife makes a great turkey dinner.”

The idea went over well, which is when they came upon the next issue. How to fit everyone into a Dodge Brothers sedan.

Lillie, as the only lady in the group, got the passenger seat up front next to the Captain. Then OJ, Hercules, and Top Hat took the bench seat in the back, as they were the oldest tugs with the most authority. (And because Top Hat would complain the entire journey if he had to stoop in an undignified position.) Which left Warrior and Big Mac to try and cram themselves in the small space behind the rear seat, while Ten Cents and Sunshine tried to take up as little space as possible in the footwells.

“I just hope we don’t get pulled over,” Captain Star muttered as he put the car into gear and pulled out of the parking lot. The roads had iced up overnight, so it was slow going as they picked their way along the fringe roads to the Star household on the outskirts of Bigg City. Of course, no matter how carefully he drove it wouldn’t keep his passengers from getting carsick. For tugs that could stand the stormiest, rolling seas they had terribly weak stomachs for car travel.

Everyone piled out as soon as the car came to a stop, though not all of them landed on their feet. Once everyone was outside and upright, the Captain led the way into his modest house. It was a modest two-bedroom place, a perfect fit for just him and his wife, but it would be incredibly crowded with everyone visiting.

The first thing that hit them when they walked into the house was the overpowering smell of dinner cooking. Though smell was one of the few senses that living ships experienced as strongly as humans, never had the aroma of turkey in the oven given them such a visceral reaction. Mouths watered and stomachs growled and everyone immediately began to gravitate towards the kitchen.

“Oh my,” Patricia Star looked up in surprise when she saw the number of people in the doorway to the kitchen, “Good thing I made plenty of food. I guess we won’t have leftovers this year.”

“Come on, let’s get you all settled in the living room, then supper will be served,” Captain Star ushered everyone out of the kitchen and into the living room. There weren’t enough chairs for everyone, but the younger tugs seemed to be perfectly happy sitting on the floor so it wasn’t a big problem.

“What a large tree,” Lillie, seated on the couch near the wonderfully decorated Christmas Tree, observed. The baubles and ornaments hanging from its branches were ones saved through the years by both Captain Star’s and Patricia’s families. Some had been handed down through generations, others marked events like “baby’s first Christmas” and the first ornament they had bought together after they had been married.

 

“No matter how busy we are, we always find time to decorate together,” Captain Star knelt down and held up a small, hand carved wood figure, “This was made by my grandmother, back in Norway. My grandfather was a woodcarver, and she took up the business after he died.”

Storytelling kept everyone well entertained until it was time for supper to be served. There was nowhere near enough room around the dining room table for them all, so they all took plates and returned to their seats in the living room. It was a bit of a challenge for those on the floor to eat without spilling food everywhere, but they managed.

Captain Star kept up his story telling, talking about adventures past. He had spent many of his younger years working on passenger steamers up on the Puget Sound, a career with many rich tales of danger, competition, and dumb passengers.

Sleeping quarters were hashed out after dessert, a process that didn’t take too long considering the small size of the house. Lillie and Patricia were sharing the master bedroom, while Captain Star and OJ got the twin beds in the guest bedroom. Hercules claimed a folding coat on the floor of the bedroom, and all the other tugs got to fight over some camping mats and blankets in the living room. The battle got a bit heated over claim on the couch, but Top Hat finally came out on top and relegated the others to the floor for the evening.

 

Christmas morning was a surprisingly languid affair, with everyone taking the time to sleep in. The tugs had never celebrated the human holiday before, and had no reason to get up early in excitement. It took the smell of breakfast cooking to get the ones in the living room awake, bringing them stumbling into the kitchen still half asleep.

“Well, I guess it’s present opening time,” Captain Star gathered everyone back in the living room after they had finished their food and gestured towards the brightly wrapped boxes sitting under the tree. 

“Presents?” Everyone looked at the pile in surprise as Captain Star passed out wrapped packages to those seated around the living room. Each one had a name written on it in neat handwriting. He hadn’t been able to think of anything material to give the tugs, since once they went back to normal they wouldn’t have much use for human things, so he’d gone out and picked up sweets for everyone. They’d be able to enjoy chocolate, at least. 

They ripped into the decorated paper with varying degrees of finesse, opening the little boxes of candies and chocolates. 

“They’re for eating,” Captain Star supplied, unsure if they would all know what the snacks were. “And I’ve lined up spring haul outs for all the harbor tugs already for when you’re back to normal.”

OJ gave everyone a pointed look, “What do we say boys?”

There was a pause before they all set down their packages for a brief moment, “Thank you Captain Star.”

“Of course,” The Captain smiled and sat back in his chair, a few presents from his wife sitting in his lap still wrapped. All around were the boys he thought of as his family. It would probably seem odd to others, to think of tugboats like sons, and he knew that most other company owners didn’t see it the same way, but he couldn’t help it. The boats weren’t just property to him. 

“Anyone for seconds?” Patricia walked into the room, a pan of fried rice in hand. 

The boats cheered and all held up their plates for another serving. 

 

They spent Christmas together with warm food and friends, then woke up the next morning to the coldest temperatures of the year. Everything was frozen over, the roads, the bay, and even the river. With a foot of snow, no one could even leave their house. 

Snowball fights were in order to keep from getting cabin fever, and those that ensued were as violent as any war. Ten Cents and Sunshine were especially vicious, mounting tandem sneak attacks before turning on each other. Everyone returned to the house soaking wet and fought over to the two showers, which had to be shared so they didn’t run out of hot water. 

The freeze continued for almost a week, until the morning of New Years when Captain Star woke up to find his house empty. He jumped in his car and rushed down to the dock to find the tugs back in their bodies and warming their engines for the day. 

It had been fun while it lasted. Captain Star went up to his office and looked over the contracts they had, marking up which ones that needed completion that day and deciding who would do what. Sliding over, he grabbed his megaphone and addressed his tugs, “Alright, Star Tugs, back to work!”

A cheer rose up from the docks as they released their lines and went out into the harbor.


End file.
